Fight rogue agency to defend state Constitution

/ AP

FILE - Supporters of Proposition B, which would roll back public pensions, adjust a sign before a rally on election day in San Diego in this Tuesday, June 5, 2012 file photo. For years, companies have been chipping away at workers' pensions. Now, two California cities may help pave the way for governments to follow suit. Voters in San Diego and San Jose, the nation's eighth- and 10th-largest cities, overwhelmingly approved ballot measures last week to roll back municipal retirement benefits — and not just for future hires but for current employees. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

FILE - Supporters of Proposition B, which would roll back public pensions, adjust a sign before a rally on election day in San Diego in this Tuesday, June 5, 2012 file photo. For years, companies have been chipping away at workers' pensions. Now, two California cities may help pave the way for governments to follow suit. Voters in San Diego and San Jose, the nation's eighth- and 10th-largest cities, overwhelmingly approved ballot measures last week to roll back municipal retirement benefits — and not just for future hires but for current employees. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File) (/ AP)

The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board

Elected officials have helped promote change through direct democracy throughout its 100-year-plus history in California. In 1934, for example, Alameda County District Attorney Earl Warren, the future governor and chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, won approval of four law enforcement and criminal justice reforms.

Now, however, the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) is offering the novel theory that ballot measures that elected officials have a role in shaping or promoting are invalid if they affect public employees because elected officials must use collective bargaining in trying to change employment terms. On Dec. 30, PERB ruled that Proposition B, a 2012 San Diego ballot measure ending defined-benefit pensions for most newly hired city workers, was invalid on these grounds.

On Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to appeal this ruling, defending the interests of San Diego voters — but also defending the California Constitution from a runaway state agency.

PERB was low-key and not particularly political for most of its existence. In 2003, for example, when Arnold Schwarzenegger took over as governor, he didn’t change PERB’s general counsel. But in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed former attorneys for the California Nurses Association and the California Teachers Association to top board posts, and PERB has been on a tear ever since — even arguing that a 1971 state law on teacher evaluations must be subject to retroactive collective bargaining.

A Superior Court judge rejected that PERB argument. We expect an appeals court will reject the PERB argument roiling San Diego as well.